Distractibility from childhood to adulthood

Poster CERVO event 2021

Results summary

Preliminary behavioral and EEG results from this study indicate that voluntary orienting, anticipatory and sustained attention processes are still maturing in children from 6 to 13 years of age. The EEG findings suggest that the maturation of attentional anticipation and preparation is supported by a shift from a reactive to a proactive strategy. Distraction and arousal effect linked to the distractor occurrence in the CAT decrease from 6yo to adulthood. Increased behavioral distraction in children would, at least partially, result from immature TD reorientation processes. Furthermore, the development of distractibility is associated with an increase in motor control between 6 and 11yo and a decrease in impulsivity between age 14 and adulthood, probably in line with the reactive to proactive shift in cognitive control.

Taken together, these results suggest that distractibility in children is supported by immature TD and BU attention processes. Further analysis of the EEG data will help to better understand which brain maturation processes underlie the behavioral development of distractibility during childhood.

Behavioral and EEG studies

Distractibility using the CAT paradigm

Bidet-Caulet, A., Bottemanne, L., Fonteneau, C., Giard, M.-H., & Bertrand, O. (2015). Brain dynamics of distractibility: Interaction between top-down and bottom-up mechanisms of auditory attention. Brain Topography, 28(3), 423–436. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-014-0354-x

Hoyer, R. S., Elshafei, H., Hemmerlin, J., Bouet, R., & Bidet-Caulet, A. (2021). Why Are Children So Distractible? Development of Attention and Motor Control From Childhood to Adulthood. Child Development, 92(4), e716–e737. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13561

Hoyer, R., Pakulak, E., Bidet-Caulet, A., & Karns, C. (in revision). The development of attention and distractibility in preschool children from higher and lower socioeconomic status backgrounds. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.06.438161

Hoyer R.S., Riedinger M., Abdoun, O., Bouet R., Elshafei H., Bidet-Caulet A. (in prep.) When do we become more prone to distraction? Behavioral evolution of the different components of distractibility with aging.

Masson, R., & Bidet-Caulet, A. (2019). Fronto-central P3a to distracting sounds: An index of their arousing properties. NeuroImage, 185, 164–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.10.041

Other paradigms

Voluntary orienting

Corbetta, M., Patel, G., & Shulman, G. L. (2008). The reorienting system of the human brain: From environment to theory of mind. Neuron, 58, 306–324. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2008.04.017 Corbetta, M., & Shulman, G. L. (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 201–215. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn755

Mezzacappa, E. (2004). Alerting, orienting, and executive attention: Developmental properties and sociodemographic correlates in an epidemiological sample of young, urban children. Child Development, 75, 1373–1386. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00746.x

Näätanen, R. (1992). Attention and brain function. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Posner, M. I. (1980). Orienting of attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32, 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335558008248231

Posner, M. I. (2012). Attentional networks and consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00064

Padilla, M. L., Pfefferbaum, A., Sullivan, E. V., Baker, F. C., & Colrain, I. M. (2014). Dissociation of preparatory attention and response monitoring maturation during adolescence. Clinical Neurophysiology, 125, 962–970. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2013.10.012

Sustained attention

Parasuraman, R., Nestor, P. G., & Greenwood, P. (1989). Sustained-attention capacity in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 4, 339–345. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.4.3.339

Petton, M., Perrone-Bertolotti, M., Mac-Auliffe, D., Bertrand, O., Aguera, P.-E., Sipp, F., . . . Lachaux, J.-P. (2019). BLAST: A short computerized test to measure the ability to stay on task. Normative behavioral data and detailed cortical dynamics. Neuropsychologia, 134, 107151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107151

Distraction

Horvath, J., Czigler, I., Birkas, E., Winkler, I., & Gervai, J.(2009). Age-related differences in distraction and reorientation in an auditory task. Neurobiology of Aging, 30, 1157–1172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2007.10.003

Olesen, P. J., Macoveanu, J., Tegner, J., & Klingberg, T. (2007). Brain activity related to working memory and distraction in children and adults. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 1047–1054. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhl014

Wetzel, N., & Schr€oger, E. (2007). Cognitive control of involuntary attention and distraction in children and adolescents. Brain Research, 1155, 134–146. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.brainres.2007.04.022

Wetzel, N., Widmann, A., Berti, S., & Schr€oger, E. (2006).The development of involuntary and voluntary attention from childhood to adulthood: A combined behavioral and event-related potential study. Clinical Neurophysiology, 117, 2191–2203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2006.06.717

Wetzel, N., & Schr€oger, E. (2014). On the development of auditory distraction: A review: Development of auditory distraction. PsyCh Journal, 3, 72–91. https://doi.org/10.1002/pchj.49

Ruhnau, P., Wetzel, N., Widmann, A., & Schröger, E.(2010). The modulation of auditory novelty processing by working memory load in school age children and adults: A combined behavioral and event related potential study. BMC Neuroscience, 11, 126. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-11-126

Phasic arousal

Aston-Jones, G., & Cohen, J. D. (2005). An integrative theory of locus coeruleus-norepinephrine function: Adaptive gain and optimal performance. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 28, 403–450. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.28.061604.135709

Duncan, M. J., Smith, M., Bryant, E., Eyre, E., Cook, K., Hankey, J., . . . Jones, M. V. (2016). Effects of increasing and decreasing physiological arousal on anticipation timing performance during competition and practice. European Journal of Sport Science, 16, 27–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2014.979248

Max, C., Widmann, A., Kotz, S. A., Schröger, E., & Wetzel, N. (2015). Distraction by emotional sounds: Disentangling arousal benefits and orienting costs. Emotion, 15, 428–437. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039041

Wetzel, N., Schröger, E., & Widmann, A. (2016). Distraction by novel and pitch-deviant sounds in children. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01949

Impulsivity

Barratt, E. S., & Patton, J. H. (1983). Impulsivity: Cognitive, behavioral, and psycholophysiological correlates. In M. Zuckerman (Ed.), Biological bases of sensation seeking, impulsivity and anxiety (pp. 77–122). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Houston, R. J., & Stanford, M. S. (2001). Mid-latency evoked potentials in self-reported impulsive aggression. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 40, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8760(00)00120-3

Munakata, Y., Snyder, H. R., & Chatham, C. H. (2012). Developing cognitive control: Three key transitions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 71–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412436807

Zhang, S., Hu, S., Hu, J., Wu, P.-L., Chao, H. H., & Li, C. R. (2015). Barratt impulsivity and neural regulation of physiological arousal. PLoS One, 10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129139